Just five more days until the holiday weekend begins...

Sports By Political Party

Okay different sports have different fan demographics so it's really not too surprising that this also shows up in party affiliation.

So you'd expect NASCAR to be big among Republicans. And I guess the popularity of the WNBA among Democrats isn't a shock either since its audience seems to consist mostly of lesbians and immediate family members. But the GOP-popularity of the LPGA - well that's just a mystery.

What is interesting is the fact the most popular sports also skew to the right. I'm guessing that the Red heartland is just much more into sports than the Bluish regions. And they also tend to vote. So note to politicians - never diss the gridiron or the PGA.

I am surprised that WWE is so lefty and small - at least from the advertising I would have guessed it would be the opposite. And where are the results for MMA and helo-caribou and hobo hunting?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:11 PM | Comments (499)
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I hear (rumor, second hand through a "source" not known to me) he's dead, but recent reports say "critical condition," and specifically claim not even "grave" condition.

And yet, here's the word from one of his brothers:

"In response to all the rumors, I can give faith that the president is recovering in a satisfactory manner," Adan Chávez, who is a state governor, told state television Wednesday. "The president is a strong man."

Ah. I hear you saying he's strong. I don't hear Hugo saying he's strong.

I would mean more to me coming from the strong man himself.

Adan Chavez is talking up violence as a method of holding on to power, should it come to that.

Chavez's older brother said Venezuela's ruling party wants to retain power by defeating foes in elections. But he told government supporters that they should be ready to take up arms if necessary.

Satan just emailed me from Hell: "Hey, does it suddenly smell like sulfur down here?"*

* Weak joke. I admit it, of course 90% of these are weak. But if someone should make this same joke, I promise you I will not go on Twitter to scream about the theft of my obvious freaking joke.

Posted by: Ace at 04:58 PM | Comments (64)
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Yes, I can now use the headline I wanted, now that it seems like Prosser is in the clear (apparently), and that he was actually charged by this associate justice but blocked her off with his hands.

Around her neck, sure. But she came at him with fists, two reports say.

All I gotta say is: What in the hell is going on in this court?

Although the left speaks of impeachment, if it is true (and it's two sources who say so) that this other justice came at Prosser with her fists, looks like she'll be the one getting impeached.

And Of Course Althouse Was All Over This: I really should have given her the main link, as she was on this all weekend (and very skeptical of the left's claims).

Here's her big question: Since this one reporter presumably heard the other version of the story -- the one where Prosser was not the aggressor, but attempting to defend himself from a lunatic -- how, exactly, did his report manage to omit that?

If Lueders had the larger context of the story — including the allegation that Bradley was the aggressor — and he suppressed it in his original account, what he did was not only evil, shameful journalism, it was freakingstupid. All sorts of bloggers and tweeters like Millhiser committed themselves to the firm, righteous position that if Prosser did what is alleged, he must leave the court. Lueders’s article lured them into stating a firm and supposedly neutral principle about physical aggression. With that principle in place, they are bound to call for Bradley’s ouster, if Bradley really did take the offensive and transform the verbal argument into a physical fight.

See, the left has been agitating all weekend for impeachment based on physical aggression.

Having laid that marker down... well, they can reverse themselves, as they always do, when partisan interest conflicts with principle, but it will be a wrenchingly ugly maneuver.

Posted by: Ace at 03:52 PM | Comments (116)
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That's not even a joke headline. That's what actually happened.

"I was lonely. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. So, what did I do? I did it," she writes in "Life is Not a Stage," set for publication in September.

Henderson went home later that night, and awoke to a grisly surprise the next day as she saw "little black things" crawling over her bed and body.

Yeah I think that's enough of that story.

You know the difference between Florence Henderson and Bill Maher?

People in Hollywood still occasionally return Florence Henderson's calls.

Posted by: Ace at 03:27 PM | Comments (95)
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Eesh.

Luke Irvin Chrisco, 30, said in a jailhouse interview with the Camera on Friday night that he had trouble meeting people on his travels abroad because of the language barrier.

"I got bored and I guess a little horny," he said from the Eagle County Jail, where he is being held on suspicion of unlawful sexual contact and criminal invasion of privacy.

Chrisco said he was living in the woods in France years ago and some friends went to a recreation center. He said he was wandering around inside the center when he ventured into the girls' locker room and noticed a loose vent, where he decided to hide.

"These chicks started showing up that I never had a chance with," Chrisco said. "But I figured at least I can see them change or something. I've come to know how interesting they are."

The instantly-notorious Port-a-Potty bandit can at least count on one Hollywood producer for support. "I was offered a cameo on a sitcom," Chrisco said. "It was between me and Bill Maher, and Bill Maher just tested 'creepy' with women and couldn't project any kind of charisma."

I may have made that last paragraph up.

A few more bad quotes at Gawker.

Thanks to Maet.

Posted by: Ace at 03:18 PM | Comments (29)
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I forgot. Treacher reminded me.

Bill Maher accused The Onion of stealing a joke he'd made about "Afterbirthers." Not birthers, but afterbirthers. Ha-ha.

There are two problems with this. Once again, I would like to look past the obvious problem.

The first problem -- the obvious one -- is that it would be very difficult for The Onion to have stolen Bill Maher's joke, given that The Onion made the joke in August 2009, whereas Bill Maher "created" the joke in February 2010.

So Bill Maher actually lifted it. One of his writers pitched it to him (yes, they all read The Onion), or he saw it himself in The Onion, or someone who saw it in The Onion said it in casual conversation as a joke and Bill Maher "wrote" it in the sense that after having heard it he then wrote it down.

Or there's another possibility, which brings up the point I really want to talk about: The other possibility is that Maher thought it up, and The Onion thought up before that, and other people also thought it up, because... it's an obvious joke and not very funny.

This is what I want to talk about.

This is not a good joke. Would I tell it myself? Ehhh... I don't know, maybe. It's weak. But sure, you pitch out weak stuff a lot. As I keep saying, it happens. Weak jokes are frankly the biggest part of any comic's repetoir.

But here's what I wouldn't have done: I would not have jumped up screaming about someone lifting my killer joke saying "Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

I would have had no pride in it, no pride of authorship. I would have chalked it up as a very weak joke, just barely good enough as filler on TV (if it rises to that level at all), and furthermore a very obvious bit of wordplay that literally anyone could have thought of.

Including amateurs who aren't funny. Such as Bill Maher.

I want you to note how The Onion treated this joke.

It's a quickie headline, with a short paragraph appended, largely for purposes of supporting the illusion that The Onion is a real news organization.

The joke is not prominent on the website. It's a disposable "News In Brief" throwaway line.

See?

The Onion did publish it, but The Onion also gave it the prominence it deserved, which is to say, not much. It's filler. It's a smile at most.

It's not like The Onion seized on this wordplay and constructed one of its more extensive bits on it, like a long article, or one of their traffic-drawing video report bits.

They elevate the best jokes to that level of prominence. This is throwaway snark like you might see here as a took-me-five-seconds gag in the headlines.

It's a joke, barely, but nothing to get all worked up about.

But for Bill Maher, this was really top-drawer, banging-on-all-cylinders stuff that he had to proudly announce he'd thought of first and then accuse The Onion of stealing his super-funny stuff.

This gag -- which barely even made The Onion at all -- was a treasure to Bill Maher, a fine moment, a carefully-crafted, inventive joke he wanted the world to know he'd created himself.

Well, he hadn't, but who cares, what really interests me is what the hell is going on this no-talent's head that he imagines this is a joke to to go the mattresses over?

This is why I say: His writers, who are funny, cannot rescue him, because Bill Maher is not only not funny on a creative level, he is also not funny on an editorial/simple recognition of other people's comedy level.

His writers cannot save him, because he cannot tell when they've proposed a strong joke and when they've fed him yet more audience-validating clapper material.

He actually thinks the clapper material is awesome, awesome enough to accuse a well-respected, real, professional comedy troupe of thievery over.

I'm curious. There are a lot of lower-level stand-up comics at The Onion.

Did one of those stand-ups propose this joke? Did they actually bother to use it in their live act, or dismiss it as "only good enough for a quickie headline?"

I have a feeling no one except Bill Maher deemed this strong enough to use in a stand-up act. It didn't make the cut. It was a throwaway. Filler for the headlines.

But here's Bill Maher, parading around his own lack of talent as he rants about people stealing all his hilarious stuff.

What a loser. What an absolute, unmitigated embarrassment to comedy.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (250)
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Pretty damn good.

Wait 'till you see the questions on that poll which determined the viewers of FoxNews were largely "misinformed."

Here's a tease: A "factual" question, to which there is an "informed" answer and a "misinformed" answer, was "Is global warming occurring?"

Also delicious: "Is the economy starting to recover or still getting worse?"

Like I said when I posted on this: If they had asked what answer does the media and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) to be true and wish you to believe, everyone would have gotten these right.

That's a fact-based question. Like if I don't believe that JFK was shot by a single shooter (I do, by the way) but if you're really testing my knowledge you don't ask "Who killed JFK?" That's a question about my logic and interpretation of knowledge.

If you want to test my knowledge on this point, you ask, "Who is officially responsible for the assassination of JFK?" Of course all Conspiracy Buffs would get that right. Duh. It's not knowledge they lack. If they're wrong (and I'm pretty sure they are), they're not wrong for lack of knowledge, or due to being "misinformed," but are wrong due to interpretation of the knowledge they do have.

Similarly I think FoxNews viewers have more "knowledge" than pretty much any audience. The fact that they depart from the media's and the Democratic Party's (but I repeat myself twice) interpretation of the data is not an indication of being "misinformed."

Fact: There has been no global warming for ten years. So you tell me: Is global warming occurring, present tense?

And hell if you look at satellite data, there's been no global warming at all.

This divergence from the misinformed "mainstream" is a product of knowing more than the average news viewer, and hence not being satisfied with the pat babyfood conclusions the media and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself a third time) wish you to reach.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (119)
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Tomorrow morning I'll put up the GOP contender straw poll again, just to see where you guys have moved over the past month. For now, let's take a look at the results of the first poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers.

Romney, the national front-runner and a familiar face in Iowa after his 2008 presidential run, attracts support from 23 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. Bachmann, who will officially kick off her campaign in Iowa on Monday, nearly matches him, with 22 percent.

[...]

Former GodfatherÂ’s CEO Herman Cain, who has never held public office but has found a following among tea party supporters, comes in third, with 10 percent.

I think it's pretty amazing that Romney, who wrote off Iowa early, still manages to come out on top. I guess the ethanol bribe works. Indeed, Romney isn't even running ads in Iowa yet.

Now compare that to Pawlenty, who made a "politically gutsy" call to end ethanol subsidies. Pawlenty so far has spent 26 days campaigning in Iowa, was the first candidate to start airing TV ads in the state, and hired major state players to lead his Iowa team. He managed to scrape together 6 percent in this poll.

Pawlenty's 6 percent is notionally behind the walking dead campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, who are both at 7 percent, although it's well inside the poll's 5 percent margin of error. Rick Santorum (4 percent) and Jon Huntsman (2 percent) round out the poll.

The other thing to note is that this is really too early to be useful for more than anything except posturing. At this point in 2008, Certain Fuckin' Doomabee, who would go on to win the Iowa Caucuses, only polled at 4 percent compared to Romney's 30 percent. Keep in mind the poll's large margin of error and its finding that 69 percent of respondents say they're open to changing their minds.

For what it's worth, I don't think Santorum or Huntsman are going to win a Huckabee-style upset this time. Bachmann, in particular, looks exceptionally strong. She definitely benefited from a week of coverage as the undisputed winner of the first candidate debate and I bet she'll see another bounce because of this poll. When it wasn't pimping out Huntsman last week, the MBM talked up a battle between Romney and Pawlenty. Ignored but not unnoticed, Bachmann surged.

Note, they didn't poll for Rick Perry or Sarah Palin in the candidate question. Perry just got in it officially at the end of last week. Everyone is still waiting to see what Palin does, but my money says she's not running and so can safely be left out of these polls. They did, however, ask about Perry and Palin's favorables. Bachmann has the highest net favorability: plus-53 points. Perry had the next-highest at plus-35 points. Palin only has a plus-21 spread.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:35 AM | Comments (63)
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First, at Newsbusters, an attack on Bristol Palin that will probably make your blood boil.

There are two objections to this. The first is that he's of course going after a young woman precisely as no one is supposed to go after Chelsea Clinton, or, for that matter, even Michelle Obama. It's also one of the more vicious attacks, sexualizing her and speaking crudely of her. Hitting her on her two grave sins:

1, being born, and

2, having given birth herself.

The second objection, and this is the one I want to emphasize, is that it's not funny. The reason I want to emphasize this is not because I think lack of comedic talent is a worse sin than a malicious attack on a young woman who never did any harm to anyone. No, it's not that being unfunny is worse.

It's that Bill Maher is proud of going after Bristol, so pointing out how vicious this is is just validation for him, confirmation of how "edgy" and "brave" and "tough" he is. That criticism, for Bill Maher, is praise. As in comment threads, trolls don't care if it's good attention or bad attention; they just want attention.

But let's look at the criticism that's actually deadlier, at least as it actually impacts Bill Maher. He's simply not funny. Nothing he says here is funny.

1. "The shit doesn't fall far from the bat." This is the sort of thing an amateur just sitting around having beers would say, the sort of thing amateurs toss off in casual conversation. It's not the sort of thing anyone immediately writes down and says "I need to get this on TV!"

It's just not funny. It's just the sort of thing you're supposed to say "Oooh, you're wicked!" to. I suppose it is borderline "wicked." I could see an old queen saying it at a Golden Globes party, and getting a smattering of chuckles for it. But no actual laughs. There are only so many ways to say "This is not professional level comedy" and I guess I've exhausted them.

2. How about this one? In Bristol’s new memoir "Not Afraid of Life" - working title, "Whoops, There's a Dick in Me”...

Putting aside this is just offensive -- I want to put that aside, because Bill Maher considers that a feature, not a bug -- this is the sort of thing that 5,000 bloggers say. It is a mildly decent shock-value sort of joke. It's also the sort of thing that amateur bloggers say, amateur twitterers say.

On this one, I'd have to say that this is the sort of thing I might write myself if the target of the joke were more deserving of it and beyond the age of majority.

But here's the thing: While I might write that (and so might 5000 other amateur-grade snark artists), I also wouldn't call it a good gag. I wouldn't say, "This right here is a keeper."

As an amateur level Twitter-cut, this is fine. It might even get a retweet from five or six people.

But is this pro-level?

Every comic tells a mix of good jokes and filler, because good jokes are just not all that plentiful. I get that. I do that too.

But does Bill Maher ever tell a joke that's not filler? That's not just "keep the audience giggling in between the actually good jokes that get a laugh."

Note when he delivers this line he's about to, as usual, start breaking up laughing at his joke.

I assure you that if I told this joke, I could easily manage to keep a straight face. Because it's simply not a good joke. I wouldn't sit there exulting in my awesome crack. I'd realize I'd just gone to filler material, and while that is part of the demands of the job, I wouldn't think I'd just hit a stand-up double, either.

3. This one is almost unconscionable for a comic:

Bristol, just admit it. You were horny, and while we're at it stop claiming that you were on birth control pills that didn't work when you got pregnant. Here's a tip, hon: they're not birth control pills if they're shaped like Fred Flintstone.

Oh dear. Where shall I start?

First of all most of this is just Kathy Griffin style talking rather than actually cracking wise. Fine. Whatever. Bill Maher now aspires to be Kathy Griffin, who at least, I have to confess, has a certain exuberance of rushed delivery that almost conceals the fact that nothing she says is actually funny.

But the Fred Flintstones birth control gag? That is like a 20 year old joke, if not older. That is what we call hack. Variants of that joke have been floating around forever, and at this point, amateurs tell that joke and pros don't because pros don't want to be caught lifting badly aged material.

How old is it? Well I know I've heard this about twenty times. I googled it. The first return for "Fred Flinstones birth control pills" is not even Bill Maher, who's getting a lot of internet references for being a smug, untalented douchebag today.

The top return is still a site called FilmThreat, which, in 2009 -- 2009! -- was already noting the joke as something grandpa might be likely to say.

The impact of the [Flintstones vitamin] commercials was significant and Flintstones Vitamins are still being sold – and their current audience are the sons and daughters of those who first used the product in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Indeed, having vitamins designed after cartoon characters became such a recognizable commodity that Rodney Dangerfield famously riffed on the concept with his classic wisecrack “”Kids are doin’ it so young these days, they’re makin’ birth control pills shaped like Fred Flintstone!”

I am not knocking Rodney Dangerfield or anything. But I'm not sure that joke was really solid when he first told it -- but at least when he first told it, it was fresh, not extremely dated old-man-being-funny-at-the-Elks-Club B-material.

I tried to Tweet to pro comics last night if any of them would actually say Bill Maher is funny. Only one comic responded -- Stephen Kruiser -- who would only say "Bill Maher was a notorious joke thief when he was doing stand-up. 'Nuff said."

Guess so. Guy's resorting to watching Rodney Dangerfield Young Comedians Specials on BetaMax for his material.

No one else replied. Now, look, maybe no one saw the query. But I think some of them did. And I think they didn't respond for three reasons:

1. Professional courtesy. No comic likes being cut on publicly and most avoid that, except in a Comic War sort of situation. Only Carrot Top and Gallagher routinely get "Not funny" public disrespect from comics.

2. People actually know Maher and he's been around forever (seriously, he's almost as old as Jack Benny by now) so why start up shit with someone in your social circle?

3. HBO is the second-most important venue for comics (after the Tonight Show, but ahead of Comedy Central) and Bill Maher apparently is fellating most of the executives at HBO so you don't burn down bridges you one day hope to cross. If comics say Maher isn't funny, then they're saying the HBO executives who think he's a scary-talent do not know their jobs, and you don't do that.

But while only Kruiser would offer criticism of Maher, not a single working comic stepped up to vouch for Maher being funny.

So this is the routine Bill Maher actually came up with with a staff of pro-writers. First, a joke that doesn't scan and isn't funny when you do put it together, second, a blogger-level quick crack, and three, a joke that was probably hack when Rodney Dangerfield first told it and, to the extent it hasn't been repeated all that much, it's because it was never really the sort of strong joke that gets repeated and copied very often.

Maher has writers. I assume these are funny men. So why is the show not funny? Why can't even his writers save him?

I think the answer is that he doesn't even know what's funny. I think he probably discards decent material for not having "The Maher Edge," and by "The Maher Edge," I mean not being funny.

I think his writers have probably quit even trying to pitch him good material and instead just save that up for their own stand-up or spec scripts, and meantime just throw Maher crap like "The shit doesn't fall far from the bat."

Actually sort of halfway funny in an awful way is David Carr from the NYT, except he gets laughs by making a Nazi phrenology joke, of course at the expense of those in Middle America.

It's a decent joke because it's so awful and shock-value, again, referencing Nazi phrenology. (Skull-shape classifications which proved, for example, that Aryans were above Slavs who were in turn above Negroes who were in turn above Jews, who of course were kin to animals.)

Would any conservative be permitted to get away with positively referencing Nazi phrenology as a solid science of racial classification?

I doubt it.

Really just a nasty crack, something that's left on the table only because there is a taboo about making jokes about Nazi phrenology, and an odd thing for the, ahem, "civility" brigade to be saying.

But, while the joke is "awful" in a moral sense, it is not awful in a comedic sense. It's halfway decent. There are a lot of factors that make up a joke, but three big ones are:

1. Novelty

2. Unexpected reference/shock value/taboo implication

3. Oddball specificity of detail

It's got those. It's not just calling someone a "Mongoloid" or an untermenschen to be exterminated, as Hilter famously cracked wise at the 1933 Staadt Comedy Festival. It adds a new little wrinkle in calling someone a Mongoloid. It adds the new wrinkle of Nazi phrenology.

So, even though the joke is morally and racially suspect, I have to confess: David Carr, a columnist with no comic experience or chops whatsoever, is funnier than alleged professional comic Bill Maher.

At least Carr actually does manage to surprise with a genuine shock/taboo joke.

Bill Maher's Fabbo Comedy:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (143)
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Back in March I wrote about how the justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court are entirely dysfunctional and generally unprofessional. At the time, it mattered only because we knew that the Wisconsin budget repair law was going to come before the court and these folks seemed more apt to childish squabbling than judicial review.

The justices are acting like toddlers again.

A source who spoke to several justices present during the incident told the Journal Sentinel that the confrontation occurred after 5:30 p.m. June 13, the day before high court's release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

At least five justices, including Prosser and Bradley, had gathered in Bradley's office and were informally discussing the decision. The conversation grew heated, the source said, and Bradley asked Prosser to leave. Bradley was bothered by disparaging remarks Prosser had made about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Bradley felt Prosser "was attacking the chief justice," the source said. Before leaving, Prosser "put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold," the source said. "He did not exert any pressure, but his hands were around her neck," the source said. The source said the act "was in no way playful."

But another source told the Journal Sentinel that Bradley attacked Prosser. "She charged him with fists raised," the source said. Prosser "put his hands in a defensive posture," the source said. "He blocked her." In doing so, the source said, he made contact with Bradley's neck.

You can click over for some more details and analysis, but the short of it is that at this point it's a he-said, she-said story with very little actually known. A physical altercation occurred, that's clear enough, but who started it is unclear.

Court watchers often discuss whether the courts are losing credibility because sharp differences in conservative and liberal jurisprudence are producing ever more contradictory lines of cases. I think the courts are losing credibility because judges are idiots. Sometimes.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:03 AM | Comments (101)
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